ESPN Golf

Originally Published: February 26, 2009

There's no predicting Lefty's next play

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By Jeff Bradley
ESPN The Magazine
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MARANA, Ariz. -- Two years ago, at this very event, I went out to dinner with Phil Mickelson so we could begin to piece together a cover story -- an as-told-to -- for ESPN The Magazine. In the story, Mickelson took us from his fateful final hole at the 2006 U.S. Open to the first hole at the 2007 Masters. I felt he was pretty revealing.

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Stuart Franklin/Getty ImagesIn both his matches during the first two rounds at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Phil Mickelson had a chance to slam the door shut on his opponents. Instead, he made his day much longer than he would have liked, but he still prevailed.

When I asked him to respond to critics of his risk-taking style, Mickelson said, "People say it all the time: I take too many risks, and it costs me titles. I've been hearing for years that I have to change my style in order to win. Well, let me ask this: Are Johnny Miller, Lanny Wadkins, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite, Lee Trevino, Davis Love and Fred Couples great players? Of course they are. Those are some of the game's most heralded names. And somehow, I've won more PGA Tour events than any of them. So I have to wonder: Shouldn't my game be emulated more than criticized? Should I change my style and win less? Or should more players try to do what I do and maybe win more?"

And when I asked him where he felt he stood in relation to Tiger Woods -- remember, this was at a time when Mickelson had come within one bad hole of winning three straight majors -- he said, "The reality is, even if I play at the top of my game for the rest of my career and achieve my goals -- let's say, win 50 tournaments and 10 majors, pretty difficult to do, since I'd need 20 more wins, including seven more majors -- I still won't get to where Tiger is right now. So I won't compare myself with him. It makes no sense."

One thing Mickelson did not reveal to me was that he was close to changing swing coaches, from longtime guru Rick Smith to Tiger's old coach Butch Harmon. That's a story that remains relevant 24 months later, as Mickelson said Thursday his swing is "not exactly where I want it, but I feel as though it's closer today than it was yesterday."

Harmon is on site this week and continues to try to work on quieting down Mickelson's lower body, which he believes is the cause of many of Mickelson's "loose" shots.

To this day, it remains my one great regret from my night out with Mickelson that I wasn't able to get him to give up the goods, that he was about to hire Tiger's ex-coach. Still, it was a fun evening for me. We had some good steaks, a great bottle of cabernet and some lobster tempura Mickelson insisted I had to try. "Greatest thing ever," he said.

When I told Mickelson I was basically a baseball writer just beginning to cover golf, he took that and ran with it. Before long, as I asked him about certain shots he'd hit in his match that day, he was taking steak knives out and lining them up on the table to illustrate the layouts of certain holes and the ball flight he was looking for on each shot. When the night ended, quite simply, I could not wait to see where Mickelson's game would take him.

Two years later, all I can say is that it's taken him all over the map. Aside from a quiet T-5 at last year's Masters, he's been a non-factor in the eight majors he's played since that night, including missing the cut at the 2007 U.S. Open and British Open. But, with that said, he's added five more PGA Tour victories to run his career total to 35.

Look no further than Mickelson's 2009 season to date to see the past two years in microcosm. He began the year by missing the cut at the FBR Open, then finishing T-42 at the Buick Invitational and T-55 at the AT&T at Pebble Beach, prompting an e-mail from one of my editors that carried the subject line, "Struggling Mickelson," and asked me whether I wanted to write a predictive piece leading into last week's Northern Trust Open at Riviera.

My gut told me that predicting Mickelson's demise -- based mostly on the way he was scattering his drives -- was not wise. My gut was right. Mickelson went out and won the Northern Trust, although he nearly coughed up the four-stroke lead he carried into the final round. Face it: There's no predicting what Mickelson will do next.

In his first two matches here this week, victories over Angel Cabrera and Zach Johnson, Mickelson has raced to four-up leads through 13 holes only to be extended to 19 and 18 holes before settling matters. "I could've closed both matches out earlier," he said.

But that wouldn't have been Lefty-like, would it? He faces Stewart Cink in Friday's match.

And, much as Mickelson said two years ago that there's no rivalry between him and Tiger, that groan you heard emanating from the desert?

That was golf fans everywhere, who were hoping for a Tiger-Mickelson semifinal match Saturday. Nothing -- not Padraig Harrington looking to add a third jewel to his Paddy Slam at Augusta in six weeks; not the latest greatest player to never win a major, Sergio Garcia; not Anthony Kim or Boo Weekley -- nothing excites fans like Tiger versus Mickelson. And it's not happening this weekend after Woods lost to Tim Clark on Thursday, 4 and 2.

Instead, it'll be Mickelson looking to win a third-round match at the World Match Play for the first time since he beat Chris DiMarco in 2004, and just his second time ever.

If anything, Mickelson seems to have his short game sharper than ever (just in time for the release of his "Secrets of the Short Game" DVD that's available at www.PhilsDVD.com).

Six times in Thursday's match, Mickelson saved important pars by scrambling.

"I hit some poor shots earlier in the round and was able to get up-and-down on holes 9 and 10 and made two of the best up-and-downs of the day there, and that allowed me to keep my 1-up lead before I won the next three holes. I think when you get in trouble, if you can get up-and-down, it really makes a big difference, forcing guys to make birdies, because birdies are actually pretty tough. Outside of the par-5s, birdies are pretty tough out here."

It'd be nice to say a strong showing in the Match Play -- where Mickelson says every match is "like a final round where you start out tied for the lead" -- would bode well for Mickelson's major hopes down the road. But if I've learned anything after breaking bread with Lefty, in this very spot, it is the following: Don't predict a thing.

Jeff Bradley covers golf for ESPN The Magazine.